Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

Our youngest and newest grandson, Ace Walker Mastroianni, ran into a road bump in his nascent life a week ago today that required a week's stay at Children's Hospital, Minneapolis, in the Infant Care Center unit. Children's hospitals in general, I think, do everything humanly possible to make this stress overload experience as gentle as it can potentially be for parents, family and friends.  The unit is quiet and dimly lit.  I mentioned to my daughter Bridget, Ace's mommy par excellence, that you could tell the babies were sick because there was hardly any crying.  Everyone in the room is overwhelmed, including the infants.  The staff is compassionate, concerned, attentive.  But it's still the proverbial hot mess.  In Ace's situation, it was a matter of ruling out issues, beginning with the life threatening and working down the ladder from there.  Basically his 'bottom rung' was that his tummy isn't strong enough to digest and move waste like it...

 They say that all good things must end, someday.  Our time on the beach is rapidly drawing to its proscribed end. There are any number of clues that it’s time to go home.  You run out of essentials: toilet paper, fresh squeezed juice, half and half.  You notice that you never used the second item purchased under the Buy One, Get One banner—those will be taken to one of the local food pantries.  The dog has completely shed his winter coat and is now spending the part of his day when he’s not sleeping panting due to temperature increases.  It’s become commonplace to port the chairs down to the beach. Today I noticed that the bag containing sunscreens has dwindled to the 4 containers pictured above (along with a swim diaper Jackson left behind).  We’ve done a darned good job of keeping ourselves greased up and sunburn free. If you’re of a certain age, perhaps you noted the tubes of Ban de Soleil on the table.  If so, your sense memory ma...

Don't get me wrong, there are a TON of things I love about Florida.  The ocean.  The weather.  The blue skies.  The seabirds and the Zone 8 foliage.  The view as you cross the Belleair Beach Causeway going toward Gulf Boulevard.  Publix's BOGOs.  Friends and family visiting to make good their escape from the cold.  So many of the people we meet daily. And then there's the Florida legislature. We're here during their legislative session and nearly every day, without exception, the Tampa Bay Times  reports on yet another piece of legislation the folks up in Tallahassee are voting to enact that send shivers down my spine.  To be fair, there are over 900 bills currently being considered and not all of them fall into that category. Two that really got my goat are: 1)  The State Senate voted 22–17 on Tuesday, mainly along party lines, to advance the bill to its final stage: the more conservative State House,  according to ...

Today is Hank's birthday.  He is 12, which the Spousal Unit  ™ would want me to remind you is 84 in dog years. Hank, bellying up to his bar at Los Caracoles in Belleair Beach, FL He also might want to remind Hank of same. One of the Spousal Unit's ™  nicknames for Hank is the Perpetual Puppy.  Hank has been prancing down the streets from the day we brought him home.  He shows no interest in slowing down and that makes me very happy. In the past, I've written about the value of connecting with people: old friends, always friends, new friends, acquaintances.  Dogs have a magical, almost mystical way of expediting such connections.  It warms the cockles of my heart to see how our Hank, twenty some pounds prancing on his leash, causes strangers to stop, extend their hand and greet him.  What's his name?  the stranger will ask.  Hank, we reply, and the 'strangeness' begins to dissipate.  Hi, Hank, you're a good boy, aren't yo...

When you leave home for an extended period of time, there is a niggling at the back of your mind which wonders how quickly you can get home, if the need arises. That was certainly a consideration when the Spousal Unit and I, Illinois natives, decided to move to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul (the Bold North, recent hosts to the Super Bowl and the upcoming mens’ Final Four).  MSP and ORD were only a little over an hour flight from each other and about 7 hours via interstate.  More than once during our 46 year Minnesota habitation that has been valuable, especially the quick flight. My friends who split time between Florida and Minnesota have all assured me that you can get home quickly, both if you just want to or if you need to.  Spirit and Frontier offer relatively inexpensive flights if you’re not hauling luggage and if you don’t particularly mind being squished into the center seat. Last week I put this premise to the test.  I needed to get home wit...

In my Florida mind, I am in a different decade.  I am in my late thirties to early fifties, the time period during which my parents wintered on Sand Key, just south of Clearwater Beach. When I go with my mother to the grocery store, there are many what seems to me to be old people  Then there is my mother, who is not yet old in my Florida mind.  Then there is me and no in-between these three divisions. My day rolls much like the tide.  I manage to rollerblade from the condominium complex down to Sand Key Park, where I glide around and through the parking lot, holding onto my portable CD player where Sting's Ten Summoner Tales provides the background music in my Florida mind.  My dad wanders down the beach to the parking lot, to make sure I'm okay and tell me it's time to come home. There are four small children in my Florida mind, frolicking in the waves, digging in the sand, crawling onto the lounge chairs with me and Dan, burrowing under the beach towels...

We're in Florida until the end of April, returned to the same townhouse we rented last year.  Simply put, we love it here. That's not the subject of this post. Driving down, we listened to a couple interesting books: Educated  by Tara Westover and Bad Blood   by John Carreyrou.  (Click on the link to read Bill Gates' notes about the book.) An aside: if you have yet to discover downloading audible books from your local library, I highly recommend doing so tomorrow, if not today.  You have 3 weeks to listen and there is something quite soothing about being read to (ask any preschooler for an endorsement). We were mesermized by the story of Bad Blood --it  details the rise and fall of Theranos. If you aren’t familiar with the Theranos story, here’s the short version: (from Bill Gates's Gates Notes)  the company promised to quickly give you a complete picture of your health using only a small amount of blood. Elizabeth Holmes founded it when she wa...